The best thing about running a business? Doling out the dough for all the necessary, yet invisible components to keep it running…Yes that is a joke.
Many organizations are required to submit annualsecurity audits in compliance with regulations. Although the audit can be daunting, failing to comply with the requirements or experiencing a security breach could have serious consequences for the organization and those responsible.
Security risk assessments are more than an audit requirement. They help you to ensure security and help you to identify areas where you might be spending too much time and money.
Below are some ways that a security audit can help you save money, allocate resources where they are needed, eliminate practices that could expose your organization to liability, and reduce risk.
Let’s take a look.
Do not use security measures you don’t need
You can pass a security audit without exposing your organization to a breach by being proactive about your security measures. We see this common error in many organizations: They buy every security measure they can without understanding the cyber risk they are trying to mitigate.
We look at whether they have the resources needed. Are they able to provide more coverage than they need? Are they properly training their staff to use it?
Stop Non-Essential DataHoarding
Do you need data loss prevention(DLP)?
Data loss prevention is one tool and technique that you will find withPCI,HIPAA and CJIScompliance. It is not often found elsewhere. Time and time again, we’ve made the recommendation to organizations to change their businessprocess,so they don’t even need to investin data loss preventionor at the very least, invest less.DLP can typically range from$50,000–$100,000and goes up based on the solution and technology. We have seen organizations invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in DLP.
We know that you don’t want any data to be considered non-essential. But, you should ask this question:
Are you hoarding data you don’t need?
This is how it works: What is the business requirement to keep the data?
This is what we’ve seen often: businesses keeping on to data that they don’t need or holding on to the “wrong”. This is why it is so important.
A real-life example of data hoarding
We experienced a prime example of”data hoarding”witha local municipality’s county jail.Because they werecollectingfederal convictdatain their Offender Management System (OMS),they hadCriminal Information Justice Services(CIJS) compliance to consider.The collected federal datawas not necessary and was the only thing that constituted CJIS data, whichrequires higher protection to meetmore stringent requirements.Once that data was removed from the OMS database, the protection requirements were relaxed, resulting in significant savings.
This was auniqueexample, but it holds true fororganizationsof any size.Unnecessarydata, especially under the thumb of regulatory compliance,demands expensive data loss prevention measures and still exposes your organization to unnecessary risk, not to mention, the cost of all that data storage!
Through years of doing business impact analyses and risk assessments with customers, we have found that a lack of understanding of compliance requirements and business requirements often leads to increased risk and overspending.
Discuss Security Assessment Options with IE
Are you ready to cut the fat on your security strategy and save money? Our team of Security experts will analyze your current structure and identify areas where you are wasting money. We can help you create a custom-tailored security strategy that is compliant for your business.
About Jason Smith
Jason Smith is the Security Consultant at Internetwork Engineering (IE). He has over 15 years of experience in IT Security & IT Security including finance, aerospace, defense, and retail. Connect with Jason via LinkedIn.
Get in touch with Jason Smith